


All safe and sound

by LittleLostBean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Soft Boys, Trauma, but not really, gavin is redeemable because I said so, idk its 1am and I'm sad so I wanted to write something SOFT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:40:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostBean/pseuds/LittleLostBean
Summary: A lil soft character study about Nine's feelings towards Gavin- particularly how he adapts to help his partner.





	All safe and sound

**Author's Note:**

> yeyeye its 1am and I am BIG SAD so needed to write some good soft loveliness!!  
> Kinda just sat down and churned this out so I apologise for any spelling errorsdfjdlfj thank you for reading <3

Trauma resides in the little things.  
Flinches. Small, subtle, yet so oddly uncharacteristic of everything Gavin tried to portray.  
At the start, Nines tried to make a file, a document of all the times Gavin cringed away from his touch, a sudden bang or the scrape of a cup. He hoped to learn the pattern so he could discover what irritated him so. There was no pattern. That was his conclusion, no matter how many clips he saved, audio he reviewed or hypothesis he tested, there was no clear pattern to Gavin’s jumpiness.  
Some days nothing would bother him, others a simple tap to the shoulder would send him reeling. Nine's started to wonder if it was just him.  
He deleted the file.

Hank knocked Gavin’s shoulder as he passed into the break room and the man tensed up so hard Nine’s was surprised he didn’t tear a muscle. Hank apologised sarcastically and Gavin sniggered into his coffee. A minute passed and Nine’s looked up from his screen to find his partner hunched over with his face in his hands, index fingers drumming a steady beat into his forehead. He let out a single, shuddering breath, shook himself and then returned to his work- or more precisely his coffee.  
He caught Nine’s gaze over their monitors and gave him a little shrug for an explanation, eyes flitting back to his own desk like he just assumed Nine’s hadn’t cared enough notice his little pause.  
Nine’s always noticed. 

Memories.  
Memories and flinching, Nine’s noted, tended to interlace. Gavin was a very animate thinker, you could always tell when he made a break in a case before the man had even opened his mouth, his eyebrows would raise, eyes gleam and mouth crease into a smile like he’d caught himself by surprise with his own cleverness. This lack of poker face extended to the darker emotions too. When Gavin was in a foul mood it radiated, his glares were cold and nastily, his frown a second away from uttering a tidal wave of insults to anyone that dared stumble into his warpath.  
Hurt made him a fragile thing, gaunt, pale, exhausted and bleary eyed.  
Glass seemed to be a reoccurring theme, a trigger, Nine’s believed.  
He masked it well. It only really showed itself on long days, hours of work paired with a lack of sleep the day before, a difficult case with a body count, no end in sight and so much pressure Nine’s could feel it humming in the air over them. A crime scene with a broken window, a bottle too close to the edge of a table, a loud fracturing smash as small prismatic shards littered a concrete floor. A flinch, a sigh, a repetitive rub at the bridge of his nose, a cold sweat and a chain of cigarettes smoked in quick succession by the car before the drive home. 

It was clear Gavin was self conscious about this… personal issue he had. Nine’s wanted to pry, wanted to pry like he wanted to adjust his collar or straighten his shirt, it was an urge- almost a need. He suppressed it.  
Not because he didn’t care but because he did, because Gavin was a man bowing under layers of baggage yet completely unprepared to share the load. Because Gavin was the sort of person that would open up to you slowly, he had to test the water, make sure you weren’t going to see something you didn’t like and leave while his walls were down and his insides on display.  
Because more than anything, Nine’s wanted Gavin to feel comfortable enough in his presence to divulge whatever made him hurt without an awkward laugh or shrug, and knew him well enough to see that forcing it would only make him retreat further into his shell. 

So instead, Nine’s waited.  
He waited and he absorbed everything Gavin Reed.  
And he always announced his presence before tapping him on the shoulder and put drinks directly onto coasters instead of pushing them across the table and if there was broken glass on a scene he would tread lightly.  
Sometimes that wasn’t enough, sometimes new things came up like TV static or cork pops or engine revs or nothing or everything at once- Trauma was a difficult thing to pin down, always moving, jumping from one form to another and leaving a knotted mess in its wake.  
Luckily, Nine’s had a knack for untangling, took great pride in the genuinely warm smile he was gifted by his partner for putting in the extra effort to learn how to put him at ease.  
It was going to take a long time to truly know Gavin, but Nine’s had been granted a lot of that, and there was nobody he would rather spend it on.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if that was a little abrupt... it's late... I have to drive to uni tomorrow + I don't really have a particular direction for this other than Nines Loves Gavin So Much. 
> 
> Thanks so much for taking the time to read!!! :D <3


End file.
